The World's Smallest Penguin May Be In Danger
Warming waters may be making it harder for the little penguin of Australia to hunt, preliminary research suggests.
The world's tiniest penguin may be in big trouble.
Warming ocean waters could make finding food increasingly difficult for the little penguin, Eudyptula minor, which stands less than a foot (0.3 meter) tall.
Because their prey is sensitive to heat, “we’re seeing that warm years are quite bad for the penguins, and it’s not hard to see that if the temperature keeps going up, things might get worse,” says Gemma Carroll, a graduate student at Macquarie University in Sydney.
Though perhaps not as beloved as koalas or kangaroos, little penguins are some of Australia’s most charismatic creatures.
Many live in island colonies along the country’s eastern and southern coasts, where tourists delight in nightly penguin parades as the birds waddle up on shore.
But in general the creatures are homebodies, venturing out from their colonies mainly to hunt fish. (See also"Penguin Numbers Plummeting—Whales Partly to Blame?")
